Hello,
Please may I request help from an Eagle PCB designer users out there? What's confusing me is if my design is suitable for submission to a PCB manfacturer in Gerber format. I see alot of manufacturers quoting 2 layer boards for 1 price, then 4 layer boards etc. etc. I'm guessing this refers to multi layered boards with additional tracks sandwiched inside the board? But using Eagle it also refers to layers such as top, bottom, pads, holes etc. etc. These wouldn't each count in PCB terms would they?
Here is a .jpg of my design;
It's very simple in that it has a single 18pin DIL on the topside, an SMD smoothing capacitor on the underside. A 9pin D-type solders onto the side of the board on the left. Signal wires from a cable go through the holes directly next to the DIL on the right. The three large holes on the far right take the main cable through the middle hole, with a cable tie nipping the cable securely to the board. Space is absolutely critical given it's obvious small size. I've copied this from the remaining boards I have here.
Here is the current .brd file if you would be willing to have a look;
I'd be extremely grateful for any assistance or pointers if I'm going wrong as I've been dropped in the deep end since my working partner (who does the electronics side) has started a regular paid job. And yes, I'm a girlie, and no I'm not an electronics engineer, I'm an embedded software developer. The prices we were used to paying were about £80 for 100 or so boards, and I was quoted £700 odd pounds by a company today who want to do a complete redesign when I already have a product. We used to regularly have prototype runs from my partner's original company which has folded.
I have several other projects in the pipeline so it would be brilliant to get these gerber files produced properly as soon as I can.
Thanks kindly,
Alison